


Reasonable Doubt

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [121]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Attempted Murder, Autobiographical Elements, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Court Telepaths, Fix-It, Gen, Heavily Autobiographical, Justice, Law, POV Female Character, Psi Corps, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 07:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14712179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: A court telepath trainee learns a little about the world, and justice.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	Reasonable Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

> _“The burden is on the Commonwealth to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charge(s) made against him (her)._
> 
> _What is proof beyond a reasonable doubt? The term is often used and probably pretty well understood, though it is not easily defined. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all possible doubt, for everything in the lives of human beings is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. A charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt if, after you have compared and considered all of the evidence, you have in your minds an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, that the charge is true. When we refer to moral certainty, we mean the highest degree of certainty possible in matters relating to human affairs — based solely on the evidence that has been put before you in this case._
> 
> _I have told you that every person is presumed to be innocent until he or she is proved guilty, and that the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. If you evaluate all the evidence and you still have a reasonable doubt remaining, the defendant is entitled to the benefit of that doubt and must be acquitted._
> 
> _It is not enough for the Commonwealth to establish a probability, even a strong probability, that the defendant is more likely to be guilty than not guilty. That is not enough. Instead, the evidence must convince you of the defendant’s guilt to a reasonable and moral certainty; a certainty that convinces your understanding and satisfies your reason and judgment as jurors who are sworn to act conscientiously on the evidence._
> 
> _This is what we mean by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”_

_*****_

When Selina began her internship as a court telepath, they told her to watch trials.

It was a privilege, they told her. While in theory most trials were open to the public, not all judges would let telepaths into their courtrooms - unless, of course, those telepaths worked for the courts.

So, she watched.

The court she was assigned to was located in a mostly white, middle class suburb. When the defendants were Black - as they too often were - the judge struggled to get Black people on the jury. There needed to be at least two on the jury in order to reasonably pass constitutional muster.

In one such case, a Black man was accused of attempted murder. Before the trial began, he tried to get the court to let him switch attorneys. With little money, he hadn't been able to hire one, and the court had appointed one. Five, actually - he'd fired the first four.

The judge refused to let him fire this one, too. She told him she'd let him fire four, and that was enough - he wasn't going to get a sixth.

"Enough is enough," she told him. "We're proceeding to trial."

The fifth attorney, a middle-aged white man, was a bumbling idiot. It was instantly clear to Selina why the defendant had wanted him gone, and she wondered what the first four had been like.

This bad? Worse?

As the prosecutor challenged off jurors, the defense attorney stood around, seemingly lost.

"Well?" asked the judge. "Aren't you going to challenge jurors?"

"Oh, I'm supposed to be challenging jurors?"

Selina saw the law clerk's jaw drop open.

"Yes," the judge said, irritated.

Had this man ever done criminal case before? Selina wondered. If not, how the hell had he been appointed to represent someone in an _attempted murder_ case, one that could see his client locked up for twenty years, if found guilty?

The defense attorney kicked a few people off the jury, for some reason real or imagined. He didn't need a reason for some of the challenges, after all.

Then the trial began.

The prosecutor said that the defendant had shot a certain man, and tried to kill him. He asked the jury to convict the defendant of first degree, premeditated murder.

_Twenty years._

The defense attorney said the defendant had shot the man in self-defense.

The victim took the stand. He told the court his version of events, that the two men had gotten into a fight in the yard of the victim's home, and the defendant had shot him. His medical records were entered into evidence. Clearly he had been shot, and that wasn't in dispute.

The defense attorney entered literally nothing into evidence to dispute the prosecution's version of events. He just stood there, or seemed to agree with the prosecution.

_How the hell is this justice?_

Exasperated - desperate, even - the defendant chose to take the stand in his own defense. The judge reminded him he did not have to - he had a constitutional right against self-incrimination - but he waived that right and took the stand.

Selina watched in shock as he told an entirely different version of events. His story wasn't merely different - it managed to incorporate every single fact that the prosecutor and victim had mentioned, and yet work each of these facts into an entirely different narrative. In that story, a third man had been there, and he had been the one to shoot the victim. The three of them had been in a fight, and the other man had pulled the trigger and run. And he had been arrested instead.

Selina realized that either he was telling the truth, or else he was an utterly _brilliant_ liar. She watched as he made his case _splendidly_ , covering each and every facet of the case and offering a different explanation for the events.

He stepped down from the stand.

The prosecutor made his closing arguments - he had shot the victim in premeditated murder.

The defense attorney made his closing arguments - "when my client shot him, he did it in self-defense."

The defendant turned and looked straight at Selina, in _desperation_.

 ** _But I didn't do it!_** he thought.

Screamed, more like, at least to a telepath. No one else in the room had heard.

The "outburst" clearly was a cry for help - as if Selina could do something about the unfolding injustice that was about to cost him his freedom.

She couldn't.

The spontaneity of the thought startled Selina. She'd never known anyone to have such spontaneous, desperate outbursts of emotion unless they were _true_.

His own lawyer had, it seemed, betrayed him. He had been forced to take the stand because his own lawyer refused to offer the jury the defendant's own version of events.

The jury deliberated for under an hour, and returned a verdict of second degree murder. _Six years._ If he hadn't taken the stand, he would have been serving twenty. He'd created enough doubt that they'd settled on second degree.

But Selina was troubled.

"I don't think he did it," she told her supervisor later. "I can't be absolutely sure unless I scanned him, of course, and that's not allowed, but no... people don't think like that, feel like that, unless they're telling the truth. And that lawyer! No, I have a reasonable doubt, and if I could have been on the jury, I would have said that."

She thought of him spending six years in prison for a crime he may not have committed.

"And that's why they don't allow telepaths on juries," her supervisor said, dryly.

Selina didn't understand.

But she did understand one thing: as a court telepath, she'd become something more - she'd become a _witness_.


End file.
